Halcyon Realms - Freedom Project/Otomo/anime

Typed out this essay found in the book "The Art of Spirited Away" sort of a introduction by Miyazaki...mostly because i was searching for more answers..though you guys might be interested to take a look too.

I would say that this film is an adventure story even though there is no brandishing of weapons or battles involving supernatural powers. However the story is not a showdown between right and wrong. It is a story in which the heroine will be thrown into a place where the good and the bad dwell together, and there, she will experience the world. She will learn about friendship and devotion, and will survive by making full use of her brain. She sees herself through the crisis, avoids danger and get herself back to the ordinary world somehow. She manages not because she has destroyed the "evil", but because she has acquired the ability to survive.

The main theme of this film is to describe, in the form of a fantasy, some of the things in this world which have become vague, and the indistinct world which tends towards erosion and ruin.

In everyday life, where we are surrounded, protected and kept out of danger's way, it is difficult to feel that we are working to survive in this world. Children can only enlarge their fragile egos. Chihiro's skinny legs and her sulky face are their symbols. However, once the reality becomes clear and once she encounters a crisis, she will surely be aware of the life she actually possesses and of a capacity for flexibility and patience, and for decisive judgement and action.

Most people just panic and collapse while shouting "It can't be true ". Those people wil be erased or eaten up in the situation in which Chihiro finds herself. In fact, Chihiro's being strong enough not to be eaten up is just what makes her a heroine. She is a heroine not because she is beautiful or because she possesses a unique mind. This is the key characteristic of this work, and therefore is a good story for 10 year old girls.

Will post the next part soon. :)